Pokémon Diamond Version (Japanese: ポケットモンスターダイヤモンドPocket Monsters Diamond) and Pokémon Pearl Version (Japanese: ポケットモンスターパールPocket Monsters Pearl) are the first main series Pokémon RPGs released on the Nintendo DS, beginning Generation IV. The games were released in Japan on September 28, 2006 and in North America on April 22, 2007. They take place in the region of Sinnoh and the player's starting area is Twinleaf Town.

Plot

At the start, the player sees a newscast about a sighting of a red Gyarados. The player then heads to his or her best friend's house and goes to Lake Verity with him to see if there are any similar Pokémon living in it. Once there, two wild Starly attack. Nearby is a briefcase containing three Pokémon that the two choose from to fight off the Flying types. As is always the case, the player's best friend, who becomes the rival, takes the Pokémon that has a type advantage over the player's choice. The professor's assistant, who is the alternate-gender player character of the player, takes the remaining starter. After the Starly is defeated, the two return to Twinleaf Town with Professor Rowan's briefcase. Back in Twinleaf Town the player's mother gives him or her a pair of Running Shoes, and then the player leaves for Sandgem Town to return the briefcase. After meeting Professor Rowan, he gives the player the Pokémon chosen at the lake to keep and a Pokédex. This sets one of the primary aims of the game, completing the Pokédex. The player then sets off to explore Sinnoh and defeat Gym Leaders in order to advance further in the plot, challenge the Elite Four and become the Champion of Sinnoh.

After the player defeats the Elite Four, there are further activities to pursue. These mainly concern the capture of previously unavailable Pokémon, extra features such as the Poké Radar, exploration of previously inaccessible places such as the Fight, Survival, and Resort Areas and the perfection of battle skills in the Battle Tower.

Blurb

Welcome to the next generation of Pokémon!As a rookie Pokémon Trainer, you will need to catch, train and battle Pokémon on your journey to become the Pokémon League Champion. You will face many challenges along the way, as you search for the Pokémon that rules time or space in Pokémon Diamond Version or Pokémon Pearl Version.

Watch as day turns to night with the return of the real-time clock feature!

Connectivity

North American Pokémon Pearl DS card

Diamond and Pearl are compatible with the Game Boy Advance Pokémon RPGs after seeing the first 150 Pokémon in the Sinnoh Pokédex. The GBA cartridge is inserted into the GBA slot of the Nintendo DS, while Diamond or Pearl is in its DS card slot to upload Pokémon. There is also a feature called dual-slot mode where if there is a certain Pokémon cartridge in the GBA slot, a certain Pokémon will appear in a certain area in Sinnoh that do not natively appear. An example is when Pokémon FireRed is in the GBA slot, wild Arbok will appear in the Great Marsh area in Pastoria City.

Pokémon uploads are restricted to six per 24-hour period per GBA cartridge, and the player will have to re-capture such transferred Pokémon in Pal Park located at the end of Route 221 before transferring from another GBA game.

Diamond and Pearl feature a global trading system, the Global Trade Station, that allows Trainers to search for any Pokémon they want, or put up one of their own Pokémon for trade for any Pokémon. Players of other games can search for the Pokémon that others have put onto the Global Trade Station.

Diamond and Pearl feature connectivity to Pokémon Ranger. By completing a special mission in Ranger, an Egg can be sent from Ranger to Diamond or Pearl, where it can be hatched into the legendary Pokémon, Manaphy.

Features

The day-night system first appearing in Generation II returns, with the same three time periods, but better transitioning between them. A new multifunction device called the Pokétch, short for Pokémon Watch, is also introduced. The regional Professor's name is Professor Rowan, after a tree like the others, and he allows the player and his or her rival to keep the starter Pokémon they used against attacking wild Pokémon at the beginning of the game.

A new battle system is used for Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. In this new battle system, attacks are declared either physical or special by how the attack itself operates, i.e. whether the attack touches the enemy or not, instead of the attack type, as was previously the case. For example, ThunderPunch is now physical and Hyper Beam turns into special. This was initially highly controversial with fans of the series, as it was considered to "waste" some of the Pokémon that were more powerful in Generation III, like Blaziken and Sceptile, though it now allows for a more versatile set of moves to be viable for these Pokémon.

Contests

In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, a significant amount of changes have been made to the Pokémon Contests introduced in Generation III, now known as Super Contests.

Instead of making Pokéblocks with Berries, Berry-flavored muffins called Poffin are made. This is done in Hearthome City, though not within the Contest Hall, instead it is done at the Poffin House, which is near the Pokémon Center in Hearthome. Using the DS's touchscreen, players must stir the Poffin as directed by arrows that appear.

The first round of the Contests themselves is similar to the first round in Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, but instead of relying solely on Contest stats, Pokémon must be dressed up using Accessories with the stylus within a time limit. Each particular Contest will require different accessories, and higher ranks may require more to be put on the Pokémon.

The second round is a dancing round, using buttons on the touch screen to either perform a dance that the others will find hard to mimic (if the player's Pokémon is the main dancer) or to copy the lead Pokémon's dance moves. Each Pokémon gets a turn at being the leader, and the leader must try to dance in time with the music, and so, obviously, so do the background dancers. The A, B, X, and Y buttons also work.

The third round is very similar to the appeals round in Generation III, and the main difference is that there are three judges and only four appeals, rather than one judge and five appeals. A Pokémon will get more points if it is the only Pokémon to perform for a particular judge, less if another one appeals for that judge and so on. The crowd system is still in place, but this time, each judge has a different meter, making it both potentially risky and potentially rewarding to appeal to a judge that all of the other Pokémon are appealing to. In addition, Pokémon will receive bonus points for appeals regardless of the impression on the judge, and points are not added simply for raising a judge's "voltage."

The following Pokémon are only obtainable in one game of this pair. In order to obtain Pokémon exclusive to the other game of this pair, they must be traded either from that game or from another compatible game of Generation IV which has that Pokémon available. Alternatively, all Pokémon released prior to these games may be migrated from a Generation III game.

Diamond and Pearl also maintain backward compatibility with the Generation III games; however, standard trading is not allowed. A player's Pokémon may be permanently transferred via Pal Park, and some Pokémon that could previously not be caught can be found using the dual-slot mode.

Also, by connecting to the Wii with a Nintendo DS, players can copy their party Pokémon to their copy of Pokémon Battle Revolution, as well as My Pokémon Ranch. However, only Diamond and Pearl are compatible with My Pokémon Ranch, while Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold and SoulSilver are all compatible with Pokémon Battle Revolution.

Reception

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl were critically well received, with Nintendo Power calling them "the ultimate Pokémon experience." [6] The inclusion of Wi-Fi features and the voice chat feature were also praised. However, the games were criticized for their somewhat basic graphics, with IGN commenting "if you're looking for impressive visuals you're not going to get them."[7] Despite this, Diamond and Pearl received a "Great" score of 8.5/10 on the site.[8]

According to Famitsu, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl sold 1,586,360 units in the four days after its release. On December 27, 2006, it was announced that the two games combined became the first Nintendo DS games to hit five million units shipped.[9]

Sales of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl in Japan exceeded the five million mark in the 29th week of sales (April 9–15, 2007).[10] In the United States, over 533,000 pre-orders were taken before release,[11] and one million copies were sold within five days. By the end of April 2007, the US release of Pokémon Diamond had sold approximately 1.045 million copies, and Pokémon Pearl had sold approximately 712 thousand copies.[12]

Beta elements

Trivia

The cartidge uses the standard grey color that Nintendo has packed most of their games in since the release of the NES. Indeed, it appears only Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum will use this color, as the subsequent games utilize black cartridges for their shiny labels, and cartridges for the Nintendo 3DS are cast in a lighter grey plastic.

Korean characters do not appear in non-Korean games and vice-versa; they appear as empty spaces.

Diamond and Pearl are also the first two games in which baby Pokémon previously available only through breeding can be found in the wild, if one doesn't count catching Wynaut on Mirage Island in the Hoenn-based games.

Also, certain Pokémon that normally evolve via trading may be caught in the wild as well.

The international versions of Diamond and Pearl are the first main Pokémon games to capitalize the names of proper nouns normally (e.g. Ultra Ball as opposed to ULTRA BALL). However, Pokémon names are still written in all capital letters.

On the back cover of the Australian release of Pokémon Diamond, it states "...as you search for the Pokémon that rules space in Pokémon Diamond Version." This is an error, as it should say "...as you search for the Pokémon that rules time in Pokémon Diamond Version." This error is not present on the boxart of other regions.

Diamond and Pearl, along with the Japanese version of Platinum, are the most compatible Pokémon games, as they can connect with nineteen other games: all main series games of Generation III, IV, and V; the Pokémon Ranger games; Pokémon Battle Revolution; and My Pokémon Ranch.